50 To Lemnos, even to the Three-I League Must I fly, these baYIng hounds at my heels FURIES: Follow seek him-round and round Scent and snuff and scan the ground! GHOST (slnkzng): But who put my ketcher out in left field? FURIES (zn a barbaric ya.wp): Houk! Houk! Houk! CHORUS (gladsomely): Grave priest" of Acropolis, Youths in hosky glade, Merchants in metropolis, Choose the Azure Blade! (murmurzng again): Round the soul entwining Runic words we wind, Crumbling, cracking, mining The tenlple of the mind! (shrilly) : Oracles say, in their caves, "Man, you never had such shaves!" (TherF zs a sudden grumblF of thunder, and the Cho- rus exits hastzly, casting nervous glances at the heavens. Fnter Orestes in the guzse of a muscular blond right fielder. He falls tu one knee and tensely executes some practice left-handed swzngs with a club.) ORESTES: King Apollo, hright Hermes, Hercules, And Hephaestian F oxx, look on me now! A meagre boon humbly do I bespeak: Send nle this day but one fatted gopher That I nlay thwack In Daedalian flight Beyond the topmost rim of yon skene, Heavenward ascending dS sacrifice To all thy ne' er-to-be-minished powers! (Enter an eight-cylinder Chrysler Eccyclema, a po.w- der-blue job, with white-wall tzres. It comes to a halt be- szde Orestes, and from zt steps the goddess Ã thena, 'who trzps over her robe, .then recovers herself.) ATHENA: Far off I heard the clamor of thy cry, Hummed on the wind instead of wings I came, To charge thee, 0 not unseemly Earthling, One full import-freighted question withal ORESTES (grovelling): Alack! I fear thy dreadful inquiry, Great Queen. Methinks thou comest to punish me For full many an impious blow struck In o'ermuscled pride this half-twelvenlonth past! Dost thou come to thunder the heretofore Murmured plaint of scrIbes-that in rank hubris I have shaken the sixty-colunln'd shrine Of the godling babe, the Sultan of Swat? ATHENA: In stare-ey'd nights unslept, in chances whIff' d, In awesonle pokes by stray zephyrs foul-blown 'Tis but mine own snlall business brings me here, One boon to beseech of thee (Szmperzng, she produces a tablet from her robes.) W ouldst thou . . . uh . . . G" ouldst thou, upon this tablet of purest Wax, for Pallas, thy John Henry inscribe? ORESTES (obliging graczously): Sure thing, Queen-here. Now hIe thee off this sward Before yon dark-garbed nlinions, in dogged Duty, to thee the old heave-ho impart. (H e leads her away as she clutches thE tablet happzly to her hreast Enter Chorus, clearzng its throat, but an- other growl of thunder causes it to changF its mind. It withdra'()JS in confuszon.) MELALENDER (from his perch) : Late it grows. Hespera's twin-hors'd chariot The Bronxian heavens hath quit. Beclouded, shadow-slnit, the blood-gouted tilt Unresolved before us sways! Here, in ninth franle's nether half, the score, thick-tIed, In GordIan gyves lies knotted. Yet take heart, Atticdns, for, 10, thy legions The enenly redoubts beclaw! Whirlpits of despond whelnl the Cincinnati! Loaded are the hassocks! One bingle ShaU waken shouts hereafter happy-thrilling, So don't go 'way, anybody! (Scene. A tense gatherzng of the C'incinnati at the cen- tral altar. Enter Brosnaeus, a bespectacled phzlosopher and fireman ) BROSNAEUS: Hither, and not unsumnloned by thy call, o Skipper, I conle, heeding thy wigwag. There, unfar fronl where stdnd we atremble, My four eyes espy the deep-browed Yogi. His awful nlace, unbloodied yet, doth cleave The void air-aswish doth he cleave it now, His Ajax-like practice riffles withal! But enough. Hand me the pill and withdraw Thy melancholy visage dugoutward. Nay, arise, 'tis naught of that, sweet swinger. Long since have you drear expiation done (Thr Cincznnati disperse, leaving Brosnaeus brooding alone. H F soLiloquizes. ) They swarm, they swarm, these bestripèd tigers! The loathly blood is dripping from their eyes. Welladay! In my deep-furrowed mind's eye- D nnlyopic orb! -the foredoonled outconle Full plainly I see: but brief nlinutes hence Curv'd goat's horns my double dome shall adorn Aloed irony that I, a poet, With an E.R.A. of three point oh four- A true servant of Euterpe, Clio, And their seven sisters of Helicon- Should fall, dust-strewn, spittl'd, and dishonored, To such an hairy band of thewy-skull'd Picture-book perusers! Out upon it! Now shall I cry for righting of this wrong. Great Zeus, hear nle! Thy thrall is in a Jam. Descend now, in onlnipotence baring ThIne arm; perforate these anthropophages,